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President makes case for health law in Hub Yawu Miller
State Rep. Marty Walsh won Tuesday’s mayoral election with 72,524 votes, besting City Councilor John Connolly. Walsh’s supporters packed the Park Plaza Hotel for a victory party with music provided by the Irish rock band the Dropkick Murphys. (Ernesto Arroyo photo)
Walsh wins mayor’s seat, pledges to work for equity Yawu Miller Backed by a formidable army of volunteers, state Rep. Marty Walsh opened up a lead of more than 4,908 votes to beat City Councilor John Connolly, winning the mayor’s seat with 72,524 votes. As volunteers packed the main ballroom at the Park Plaza Hotel, Walsh pledged to unite a city that split nearly evenly between the two mayoral candidates. “This is Boston strong, and together we’re going to make Boston even stronger,” he said. “We’re going to do it by expanding opportunity, we’re going to do it by creating community and creating equality for everyone.”
Walsh’s victory capped a feverish six-week battle with Connolly’s campaign that saw what many say was an unprecedented push for the support of the black, Latino and Asian communities. “This is the first time we saw candidates going after both the minority vote and the minority leadership,” said Walsh supporter Alvaro Lima, director of research at the Boston Redevelopment Authority. “The endorsements were very important. For the first time, the minority community came together and made a difference.” While a group of black clergy endorsed Connolly, Walsh won the endorsements of all black elected officials as well as labor
leaders and community organizations in the black, Latino and Asian communities. Along with their endorsements, former mayoral candidates Charlotte Golar Richie, Felix G. Arroyo and John Barros went to work for Walsh, converting their offices to Walsh campaign offices and calling their former supporters to urge them to vote for Walsh. The efforts of the candidates were augmented by armies of union volunteers who blanketed the city’s low-voting wards with leaflets, phone calls and house visits as part of a comprehensive get-out-the-vote effort. While the Walsh campaign Walsh, continued to page 21
After Congress passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010, it ran a gauntlet of opposition, surviving a Supreme Court challenge and serving as a political football in the 2012 presidential election and this year’s government shutdown. Most recently, rollout of the national health care law has been plagued by technical setbacks that have stalled traffic on the website designed to connect consumers with health care plans. With the law, known as Obamacare, under renewed attack from Republicans, President Obama retreated to one of his most reliable Democratic strongholds to make his case in defense of the law. “Health care reform in this state was a success,” he told a Faneuil Hall audience of health care executives, health care activists and civic leaders when he spoke in Boston last week. “Thirty-six thousand people signed up within a year.” Despite the Oct. 1 rollout of the website, which consumers can use to find and select health care plans, the Obama administration has registered just a few hundred people for the national health care plan. Obama assured last week’s audience his administration will soon have the website up and running.
“We’re working overtime to improve it every day,” he said. “Every day, more people are signing up. More people are successfully buying their plans than there were two weeks ago.” While GOP talking heads are shining a spotlight on the Obama administration’s website woes, the president and Gov. Deval Patrick are putting the focus on the virtues of the Affordable Care Act, highlighting the Patient’s Bill of Rights — a set of consumer protections that include measures preventing insurers from discriminating against children with pre-existing conditions and the requirement that most plans cover preventive care. “ Yo u n g people can stay on their parents’ plans until they’re 26,” Obama said. “All this is in place now. It’s working now.” Republicans have been hammering away at the Affordable Care Act since it was signed into law in 2010, with claims the law would increase disparities between black and white health care recipients and bankrupt businesses. The Obama administration has a ways to go toward meeting its goal of providing health care insurance for everyone in the United States. Currently 15 percent of the population does not have health care.
“Every day, more people are signing up. More people are successfully buying their plans than there were two weeks ago.” — President Obama
Obama, continued to page 7
Sox world series victory underscores progress on team’s race issues Brian Wright O’Connor If the first World Series title of this century buried “The Curse of the Bambino” and the second threw dirt on the grave, then the third may finally put to rest the ghost of Jackie Robinson. After the umpire called the final out of the World Series last week, Red Sox fans of every race, color, and creed erupted in the sort of elemental joy that only the Olde Towne Team can inspire — a soul-stirring pleasure that feels
like redemption in a city built on Puritan gloom and Catholic guilt. In the decades after World War II, blatant institutional racism emerged as an even darker side of the city’s heritage. When Army veteran Jackie Robinson showed up at the “lyrical band box of a ballpark” in 1945, the team offered a phony tryout, with no intention of ever signing the speedy hitter who went on to become the first African AmeriSox, continued to page 9
Red Sox slugger David Ortiz hits a grand slam in game two of the World Series. Ortiz has been instrumental in three World Series victories for the Sox. (Photo courtesy of the Boston Red Sox photo)
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